


Grave Misunderstandings

by ArdentAspen2, Mokulule



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Don’t mess with the Lars Family, Gen, Skywalker Family, Vader has no idea what he’s doing as usual, Vader’s bad day got better, fic with fanart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:59:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27068266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArdentAspen2/pseuds/ArdentAspen2, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mokulule/pseuds/Mokulule
Summary: A "routine" negotiation with Jabba the Hutt leaves Darth Vader distracted and angry. He finds himself wandering into very familiar territory without meaning to. The occupants are less than thrilled to see him.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Comments: 36
Kudos: 451





	Grave Misunderstandings

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to our little collaboration! ArdenAspen2 wrote the fic and Mokulule drew the pic, enjoy!

**Grave Misunderstandings**

  
While it wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say that Darth Vader was _always_ in a foul mood, being sent to Tatooine was _particularly_ offensive to him. To be forced to converse with that wretched slug, Jabba, instead of delivering him to a richly deserved death. To have to work with Hutts at _all_ , and on the world he hated most-  
The emperor was tired of his “moping”, as he so sourly called it. This was not a punishment, but simply one of myriad little cruelties Palpatine inflicted on a day to day basis, solely for his own amusement.

By the time Darth Vader left Jabba’s palace, his anger and disgust had curdled into a murderous fury. The next creature that so much as looked the wrong way at him, he promised himself, would die.

The next creature was not what he had expected.

He couldn’t say for sure why he found himself landing the shuttle on the outskirts of Anchorhead. _This_ place, _this one place_ he had sworn never to return to. What trick or game of the Force was pulling him across the sands, across to where _she_ was buried?

The stone was gone.

Vader froze, standing where he knew his mother’s grave was. Someone had removed her grave marker. Black rage swelled up in his heart. He would _kill_ Lars for this. How dare he desecrate the grave of the woman he claimed to have loved?

There was a soft thud behind him.  
Vader turned and found himself looking down at a human child in dusty clothes. Scattered at his feet were bits of desert glass and a roll of incense made of common kitchen spices, rolling out of the basket he’d dropped.  
Grave offerings.

For a moment, neither moved. The child stared up at Vader with eyes that seemed too large for his face -- an unsettling face, familiar in a way he couldn’t quite place -- and Vader stared back. Then the little boy shrieked and ran back to the compound behind him.

Vader wanted answers. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t need this memory of a life that no longer existed. _But he wanted **answers**._ He stormed after the boy, and made it to the edge of the sunken courtyard in time to hear him babbling incoherently.

“Aunt Beru! Aunt Beru! There’s a man at Grandmother’s grave! A- a- a- bounty hunter in armor!”

_Grandmother?!_

The younger Lars -- Owen, wasn’t it? -- must have had a child.  
But then...wasn’t he engaged to that girl, Beru? Then why would the child call Beru _aunt_?

Vader felt a spike of terror from the woman long before he peered over the edge of the courtyard.  
“Luke, hide.”

“Is it Jabba again?”

“Get in the maintenance bay and _do not_ come out until you hear me or Uncle call you, understand?”

Moments later, a man he recognized as Owen Lars appeared at the door with a blaster in his hand. The moment he laid eyes on Vader, the blaster fell to his side, and he went deathly pale. As with Beru, the fear that Vader sensed was not for _himself_ , but for the _child_. Curious.  
No, it was more than curious.

Initially, Vader could not have possibly cared less about some farmer’s brat who had been frightened by him. But the Lars’ seemed very set on hiding his existence, which seemed unusual for people as stubborn as moisture farmers. And the boy had seemed very upset at finding Vader standing over his “grandmother’s” grave.  
Vader told himself that this was no more than a curiosity, a small diversion to tie up loose ends. But the Force said otherwise. The child’s fear bled into the Force with brighter colors than any non-Force user.

Ah.  
 _They were hiding a Force-sensitive._

“Owen Lars.” Darth Vader watched the man’s face twist with surprise. No, Owen did not know him anymore. “Who are you hiding?”

Owen’s legs trembled, but he set his jaw defiantly and blocked the door. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then I suppose a little ghost must have dropped the basket of offerings at the desecrated grave,” Vader snarled. “Do not lie to me, farmer.”

Understanding passed over Owen’s face, followed by confusion. “Him? That’s only my nephew. He thought he saw one of Jabba the Hutt’s men. He was frightened.”

The explanation rang true. It was not safe to leave children unattended in territory controlled by a Hutt. Perhaps they had not yet realized that they were harboring a Force sensitive.  
“Your... _nephew_...does not know what Darth Vader looks like?”

The farmer looked faintly embarrassed, then angry that he had been embarrassed. “We can’t afford a Holonet terminal.” He squared his shoulders. “If that’s all, I’ll-”

Vader took a threatening step forward. “Bring the boy to me.”

The fear washed over Owen again. He fumbled with the door controls with one hand, and the door slid shut behind him. “Luke didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Do not make me repeat myself.”

“ _E chut ta!_ ” Owen was trembling, but his grip on the blaster tightened.

Vader stepped closer. “Bring the boy to me, Lars, and I will forget your insolence.”

“No!” Owen raised the blaster. “Whatever his father got involved in, Luke had _nothing_ to do with it!”  
Then his eyes widened, as if he’d said more than he’d meant to.

_His father- Luke’s father_ \- the Force whispered in Vader’s ears. _Shmi’s grandson? An impossibility._  
The Dark Side boiled in his veins. He took some small satisfaction in watching Owen suddenly gasp and clutch at his throat, but it wouldn’t give him answers.

“And _what_ ,” he asked, quiet and dangerous, “Did... _Luke’s_...father get “involved in”? Just where is this father?”  
He eased the pressure enough to let Owen talk.

“At a guess, you probably killed him,” Owen gasped. He was still afraid, but _determined_. “Like you’re probably gonna kill me. It don’t matter. I’m not giving you Anakin’s kid. He’s a _baby_. He didn’t do anything to your karking empire!”

Anakin’s-

_A baby-_

Anakin’s kid-

_An impossibility._

_“Anakin Skywalker had no children!”_ Vader growled.

“Is that...what his “masters”...told you?” Owen choked out bitterly.  
Abruptly, Vader released him, and he nearly collapsed against the door.

It seemed utterly impossible.  
 _“It seems that in your anger, you killed her.”_  
It was _not_ possible.  
 _“Search your feelings, Lord Vader. You will know it to be true.”_

And so he did search his feelings. Just to be sure. Just for the reassurance that it was all a lie, that his hatred was justified. It would be a lie. Or Owen would simply be convinced of a lie. Anakin Skywalker’s child was dead. Dead like his mother and grandmother before him, one more innocent victim he’d failed to save.

But when he reached into the Force, reached for the emptiness that had filled the back of his mind from the moment he woke in the armor, he found that it was not as empty as he had believed. Dormant, yes. Muted, but not absent. A link, no more than a filament, stretched out from his soul. And when he followed the little skein of light, it ended in a bright cloud of frightened colors, and a forgotten basket of desert glass.

“How...is this possible?” he said aloud, softer than he meant.

_“Ani...something wonderful has happened.”_

His child lived.  
 _The baby lived._  
 **His master had lied.**

“Where is the boy?” Vader demanded, overcome by a sudden sense of urgency.

Breathing heavily, Owen kept his back to the door as he pulled himself upright. “You leave him _alone!_ ”

“I am not going to _harm_ him!” Vader snapped. “Bring the boy to me, or I will go and find him myself! The choice is yours, Lars.”

Stubborn as ever, the farmer refused to move. “If you’re not gonna hurt him, what do you even _want?_ ”

_“I want my son!”_

Vader turned on his heel and stalked towards the courtyard. What had Beru said? The maintenance bay? He thought he still remembered where that was. But even if he didn’t, the boy’s -- _Luke’s_ \-- presence was unmistakable now. He would find him, regardless of how well he might have been hidden.

When he pried open the maintenance bay doors, Luke shot at him.

It wasn’t a blaster, or any kind of real weapon. Still, Vader had not expected to be attacked with a slingshot. He caught the next hex nut before it could strike his helmet. The boy had impeccable aim, he’d give him that.

“Are you finished?” he asked, willing himself to calm down.

The boy glared at him from behind a stack of crates.  
Now that he was actually paying attention, the familiarity of the boy’s face finally made sense. Light hair, light eyes -- his data readouts told him they were _blue_ \-- round cheeks and a little dimpled chin- he was a second edition of his own father. But not _entirely_. The shape of his nose, and the dimple that only appeared when scowling, those were all _Padme_.  
It was true, then. The child had survived.

“You better not have messed with Grandmother’s grave!” the little boy threatened, clearly attempting to sound brave.

“I did nothing, though I saw no grave marker.”  
 _Where is the grave marker?_

Thin eyebrows lowered in a petulant look. “Hutts keep a lookout for free Skywalkers. They don’t like that. We had to hide her name. Grandmother understands.”  
The explanation sounded rehearsed, as though he was repeating something he’d heard many times.

Darth Vader held out a hand and forced himself to lower his voice. “Come here, boy.”

“No way!” Luke skittered back and dodged behind a ramshackle landspeeder. “What did you do to my uncle?!”

“He is unharmed-”

“I don’t believe you!” Luke ducked down. “Uncle Owen! Aunt Beru! Help!”

“Luke, _enough_.” Vader pushed aside the crates easily. The boy had backed himself into a corner when choosing his hiding place. “I am...sorry that I frightened you before. It was not intentional”

“Yeah?” The boy’s voice was shrill. “You’re _still_ scary!”  
He dove underneath the speeder as Vader reached for him. “Go _away!_ ”

Vader struggled to be patient with the impudent child. Of course he would not come willingly. He did not know who this armored man invading his home was. He had likely never been trained, and would not yet know how to sense the connection between them.

“I am not going to harm you, Luke. Come out.” Vader could easily have pulled him out with the Force, but he decided to reserve that for if Luke refused to come out willingly. “Come out, and I will tell you why I was visiting your grandmother’s grave.”

For two unbearable seconds, there was no reply. Then, cautiously, the child crawled out on the other side of the speeder. He fidgeted, as skittish as a tooka kitten, and eyed the speeder as though ready to dive back under at the slightest provocation.  
Vader decided not to take that chance.  
Faster than Luke could register, he’d rounded the speeder and scooped the little boy up into his arms.

Luke _immediately_ fought.  
He kicked and struggled as though his life depended on it. He probably thought it _did_.

“Aunt Beru! Help!” he shrieked, kicking at Vader’s arm. He gripped the front of the mask and pushed, trying to make the man loosen his grip at least a little. “Aunt Beru!”

“Be _still_ Luke!” Vader did his best to maintain his grip without hurting the boy. How much strength was too much? He hadn’t had to carry a child in years! “You are not in danger!”

Luke planted one hand on Vader’s shoulder and the other on top of his helmet and shoved with all his might. That he managed to pull himself halfway out of Vader’s arms was, in and of itself, impressive. Vader was too occupied with trying to keep Luke from toppling headfirst to the ground to sense Beru right away. The woman charged into the maintenance bay with a loaded rifle. Her husband was right behind her.

“Put him down!” She raised the gun. “You put my baby down!”

“He is _not_ yours!” Vader rumbled, “He is mine!”

“The _kriff_ he is!” Beru shouted back. “Leave him be!”

“Yeah! Let _go!_ ” Luke slammed a fist down on top of the helmet.  
It...really didn’t have much effect.  
“What are you, crazy?”

Vader ignored this for the time being. “Where is my mother’s headstone, Lars?” he asked. “What have you done with it?”

“Oh...oh kark no.” Owen gripped the doorway to brace himself. “What…?”

“You hide my mother’s grave, and then you hide my son from me,” Vader hissed. “I want explanations. _Now_.”

Beru paled, but did not back down. “Well now,” she said in a shaking voice, “Looks like there’s been a lot of _hiding_ going on. You prove you are who you say you are, then we’ll talk.”

Luke struggled harder. “Aunt Beru, what’s going on? Who _is_ this guy?”

Beru’s lips thinned. “I don’t know yet, baby. I don’t know yet.”

The words churned in his gut, and clawed their way out of his throat despite all his resistance.  
 _“I am Anakin Skywalker,”_ Vader ground out. “And I want my son back.”

Luke tipped headfirst out of his arms.


End file.
